Playing Kick The Can until it was too dark outside to see. So much fun!

We lived on a 5 acre farmette on the edge of the country (when neighborhoods gave way to farms). My dad taught me to ride a bike when I was 7 and we took off on country roads. But soon enough, I was allowed to go out on my own. There were other families scattered nearby but not close. Some had other kids that I'd play with from time to time, but I remember mostly playing by myself. My much older sister often would comment on my vivid imagination. When I was 10 my parents sold the place and built a house across town in a neighborhood. Mostly I remember making my own "entertainment". We didn't have a t.v. til I was 10 and that was limited of time to watch. Our town was safe--one could ride bikes all over or even walk without worries. I'm sure there was a "dark" side to life but I was never aware of it. These times were in the 50's and 60's....too bad the kids today can't enjoy what we enjoyed.

Other things I remember when we lived on that acreage---we had an apple orchard, grape vines and a very large garden. My mom made all our meals from "scratch" and baked bread and canned vegetables and fruit. She hung our laundry on the clothes line and everything got ironed. She didn't get an automatic washer/drier til she was in her 60's in the 60's and never had an automatic dishwasher. We also didn't have air conditioning back then neither.

Ice skating on the local pond after Dad checked that the ice was thick enough. Another winter memory was walking after a snow storm, at night, just to enjoy the quiet & beauty of it in the streetlights

In summer, walking a mile to the ocean for my swimming lesson. Or building forts in the sumac trees behind the house. Yep, we enjoyed watching Bonanza on Sunday nights too, as a family. Then off to bed

Boy, everyone has wonderful yet different memories.

Why would you “correct an error”? Actually the term is “Ollie Ollie OUTS IN FREE!” but most neighborhoods had their own version depending on what they heard from another person. So whatever they said is really not an “error” just because you said it differently.

Swimming lessons every morning at the town beach during the summer...home for lunch (had to wait an hour) then walked up to the swimming hole just up the street....sometimes delayed getting there if the raspberry bushes along the way had ripe fruit.

rushing home from school to put your play clothes on and get down to the field in back of a couple of houses to play baseball until it was so dark you couldn't see the ball...or the older sisters came down and told us to all get home

a week of summer camp....playing marathon games of Monopoly in the basement when it was in the 90's outside

listening to my mother say "why does this ice cream truck have to come every single day just as we're sitting down for supper?"

eating beans and franks EVERY Saturday night

digging for worms and catching buckets of 'blue gills'

building snow forts and sliding down the hill on the street that we lived on....before the days when the town sanded and salted the roads

clearing the ponds off and playing hockey without any equipment beyond a stick and a puck

playing cops and robbers with toy guns in the woods

I remember the taste of honey suckles that was only interrupted by the sound of my dad's whistle which prompted an immediate run home. Saving soda bottle caps that allowed us movie tickets. Catching tadpoles in the canal in our backyard. Television made possible with aluminum foil on antennas and I was the designated mover of that antenna. Halloween costumes made by mom (our favorite, my sister and I went as Minnie & Haha,) ahhhhhh, the good old days.!!

Don't forget jumping rope. Especially fun with double ropes turning in opposite directions. Had to have perfect timing to jump in without tripping up. Also swinging from vines into giant leaf piles.

Ah, the taste of honey suckles, a great memory.

What a great thread.

All the things we used to do before age 10 that our grandkids cannot do now,

Sports were choose up sides with no adults around. When we had arguments we all settled them ourselves.

Some led to fistfights and after 5 or 10 minutes we forgot and were friends again.

Taught us conflict resolution that this younger generation will never learn on its own.

Playing cards like Go Fish and War and 500 Rummy. Playing pick-up-sticks, shooting off cap guns and hitting the pop sickle stick with a rubber ball against a opponent. So many other fun things. So innocent we were.

Come home when street lights come and on. Neighbor mom's were to be respected. This hurts me more than it does you..

It would be great if a good humor person would roam our streets. Geez. We would flock to that truck all the time when I was a kid. probably against the convenients here.

Almost forgot...
 

Almost forgot the school play ground, with METAL jungle gym, METAL slide that burned your butt in summer and froze it in winter. Don't forget tether ball, 4 square and the merry go round. And swings that when you got real high you would jump out. Now that was fun!

I have so many but some stands out the most......
Sitting at the Ebbets Field, Polo Grounds and Yankee Stadium ball parks watching the Greats of Baseball play.... :popcorn:
Stick Ball - Johnny On the Pony - Skelsies - Spin the Top - Punch Ball - Kick the Can, Boy Scout camping, etc. etc..
My 7th Grade favorite was "Spin the Bottle".... :a040:

Wonder if they still play spin the bottle?:coolsmiley: